Suitcase, Long-lost In Venice, Puts A Chilll On Winter Travel Plans

PARKE ROUSE

"Yes," I answered and held the phone to yell: "Betsy! Answer the phone. I think they have it."

I may have misled my wife, for we're expecting a grandchild in Charlottesville any day, but I was too excited to be specific.

That's the way we learned that the suitcase she'd last seen in Venice on Sept. 28 had finally shown up. The date was Oct. 19, and she'd almost given up hope of seeing her beloved possessions again.

It's a typical story among people who fly the friendly skies (and the unfriendly airports) these days. We'd finished a marvelous two-week cruise of the Mediterranean and were leaving our ship, the Dawn Princess, in Venice. But the big suitcase she had labelled to fly with her to Rome and New York didn't show up when she got to New York. She'd been on the phone about it almost every day, but nobody had come up with it.

Leaving our ship in Venice was traumatic in the first place. We had to get up at 4:30 in the morning, she to fly home and I to go on by train to Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Evidently she or a steward had failed to put the correct color-coded label on her bag. Anyway, it never arrived.

She kept a record of the next traumatic weeks, which reads thus:

Sept. 28 in Rome Airport: I began to worry about my suitcase, but I didn't have time between my arrival from Venice and my TWA departure for New York to go to the baggage area and look for it.

Sept. 28 in Kennedy Airport, N.Y.: No bag. I reported it to the Lost Baggage Office, which noted all details and instructed me to call TWA.

Sept. 28 in Norfolk Airport: Arrived in Norfolk and talked with Mr. Oli at the TWA information desk about the bag. He assured me that "The bag will assuredly turn up."

Sept. 28 in Williamsburg: Called Norfolk. No bag.

(Here I interrupt this sad tale to say I'd meanwhile reached Zagreb after a Tooneryville Trolley ride through Trieste and many unpronounceable towns. However, as I bumped along I couldn't help but to worry about my wife and her three flights en route home.)

Oct 2. in Williamsburg: Betsy called TWA in Norfolk. They promised to send a telex message to Rome and Venice in search of the suitcase.

Oct. 4 in Williamsburg: Called TWA. No news.

Oct. 6 in Williamsburg: Called TWA. No news.

Oct. 11 in Williamsburg: Beginning to worry about many needed items in lost bag. Called TWA. No news.

Oct. 19: Eureka. Alitalia called from Washington to say the missing bag had been found in Rome. It evidently arrived there with Betsy but lacked a tag to indicate forwarding to New York. We're told the bag will be sent to New York by TWA on Oct. 20.

Oct. 23 in Williamsburg: Alitalia called from New York to say the bag had arrived there and will be sent on to Norfolk. Hopes are rising.

Oct. 26 from Norfolk: Mr. Oil of TWA called to say the bag is there. Betsy called daughter, Marshall, in Norfolk and asked her to pick it up and bring it to Williamsburg on her next trip. Then Mr. Oli called again to say he has already sent it.

My wife was temporarily alarmed to find that the bag had been locked by somebody. After a panicky search through her dresser drawer, however, she found the key. Everything in the suitcase was just as she'd packed it, including two champagne glasses the captain of the Dawn Princess had given us.

"The odd thing about the month-long wait," Betsy says, "is that I had complete confidence the bag would show up. Something that heavy doesn't float up into the air, and it didn't look ritzy enough for anybody to be tempted by it."

During all these weeks I heroically refrained from reminding my wife that I avoid such trauma by carrying my clothes in two smaller bags that I can take aboard an airplane and stow overhead. I know from long experience she'll reject that. "Men don't need as many clothes as women," she would huff. "And you always end up borrowing medicines and things I've carried. Don't give me that stuff about `traveling light.'"

The experience may have a few benefits, though they're hard to perceive. One is that my wife now thinks of TWA's Mr. Oli in Norfolk as her newest best friend. Another is that she has a ready reply when people ask her, "Tell me about your trip to the Mediterranean."

Meanwhile, as winter casts its pall, I'm busy again reading brochures about wonderful cruises - the Caribbean, the Far Pacific, Malaysia - to while away those grim February days.

My wife's not having any of it, though. I can see I`m in for a long, dull winter on Bayberry Lane.